The 100 Greatest Songs of the 1970s, Part IX.

060. Wings “Jet”
(Paul McCartney/Linda McCartney)
Band on the Run, 1973

Positioned midway between the Electric Light Orchestra’s self-important pomp-rock and the goofy glam of bands like Chicory Tip, this is probably Paul McCartney’s most recognizable post-Beatles “rock” song (as opposed to power-ballads like “Maybe I’m Amazed” or snooze-fests like “Mull of Kintyre”), and makes the definitive argument for his continued relevance, as far as I’m concerned. He retains the clever rhyming patterns that only he and Elvis Costello have ever really been successful with this side of the 1940s, and while the lyrics don’t make much sense on their own (so the girl’s name is Jet? and you thought her father was a lady? what the hell?), they provide the necessary lightweight balance for the otherwise-turgid dynamics of the song. Wings, of course, was never a real band, but Paul, Linda, Denny, and the studio hires could fake one convincingly — and the further away we get from the arrogant rock-snob elitism of the late 60s and early 70s, the less that kind of thing matters when all that’s left is the music. And the music here is sincerely great, 70s rock wrapped up in one big tidy pop package, bridging the gap between humorless, lunkheaded hard rock and the sharp, production-heavy wit of acts like 10cc. And there is a glammy stomp buried back in the mix; or am I just thinking that because the word “suffer-agette” inevitably recalls David Bowie’s greatest glam stomper?



059. Curtis Mayfield “Freddie’s Dead”
(Curtis Mayfield)
Superfly, 1972

Blaxploitation is a curious thing. The very word gives off mixed signals: on the one hand, there’s the “I’m black and I’m proud” connotations that lowbrow auteurs like Melvin Van Peebles cultivated; but on the other hand, there’s an undeniable “watch the darkies beat each other up” vibe that satisfies a primitive racist jones for behaving badly in a vicarious way through black people, who are morally degraded and so can’t be expected to know any better. (In the racist’s mind, that is; and not that anyone thinks this consciously, but the remnants of minstrelsy cast a long shadow.) You have to think that Curtis Mayfield, unquestionably one of the greatest progressive black voices of the era, was aware of this, and consciously turned the soundtrack to Superfly, a wannabe-noir glorification of ghetto cocaine-pimping, into a socially conscious record documenting the psychological and spiritual toll of the drug-dealing lifestyle. And yeah, viewed through modern hip-hop eyes there’s kind of a Bill Cosby-ish paternalism to it some of the lyrics, but damn, dawg, truth-telling’s never sounded so hip. His inimitably sweet falsetto glides over the most gorgeous cinema-funk not produced by Isaac Hayes or Norman Whitfield, using studio tricks worthy of David Axelrod or Jack Nietzsche for a lush soundscape that retains an urban, soulful grit. Just gorgeous.



058. Chi Coltrane “Thunder and Lightning”
(Chi Coltrane)
Chi Coltrane, 1972

I really had no idea what to expect when I found this record in the Female Vocal section of one of the local vinyl paradises. I bought for two reasons: I’m a compulsive collector of music from 1972, and I wondered if she might somehow be related to that other Coltrane. (Answer: unless her ancestors owned his, probably not.) Apparently this hit the charts back when, but I’d never heard it; it’s gospel-pop not unlike Carole King’s “I Feel The Earth Move,” but harder-rocking and less beholden to Brill Building tradition. And she’s got a better voice, a honeyed growl that owes as much to deep soul singers like Barbara Acklin and Irma Thomas as to white singer-songwriters like King or Laura Nyro. But this is no Sixties pastische: the piano-thumping velocity of the thing, the honking saxophone, the streamlined, bubbly production all smell like crisp 70s vinyl to me. (That’s not so much synesthesia as sense-memory, actually.) Aside from her one-hit-wonderish debut, Coltrane was only somewhat successful; she released a handful of albums and like many, found more fame, adulation, and money on the European circuit, where being white didn’t preclude her from being a soul singer, and being female didn’t preclude her from rocking. But she never bothered the U.S. charts again.



057. Gang of Four “Damaged Goods”
(Gang of Four)
Entertainment!, 1979

Punk is good, we’re not knocking punk, but (setting aside the issue of defining the thing at all; we talking New York, London, or what, here?) when you get down to it, it’s really only interesting as a corrective to the larger rock scene, or as a framework for further exploration. And that’s what this is, both of them at once: the first great punk-funk song, stripping the heady symphonic bliss of disco down to a numbing Krautrock bassline, but then amphetamined, bringing both the rhythmic speed and the abrasive guitar noise that a post-Pistols Britain required to be taken seriously. Gang of Four was remembered for the longest time mostly as an agitprop postpunk band, leftists with a skitterish, difficult-to-take-hold-of sound. When I first wanted to listen to them, I had to buy imported CDs. Then the great dancepunk revolution of 2003 ocurred, and suddenly they’re just a quirky pop band. Which they always kind of were (only a fool takes postpunk rhetoric at face value) , but this is the only time they ever really sang about relationships, and of course it’s in a quasi-clinical way using metaphors from capitalist economics. They meant to be preaching revolution, but a quarter-century later, it’s no longer incendiary, unless you mean burning up the dance floor.



056. Badfinger “No Matter What”
(Pete Ham)
No Dice, 1970

I’ll go ahead and say it: I hate power-pop. Matthew Sweet, Weezer, Sloan, Teenage Fanclub, Fountains of Wayne, the New Pornographers, whatever: thank you for your interest, but we already have a Beatles. No further applicants are required at this time. But wouldn’t you know it — dial back thirty years, and the most explicit violation of the Beatles’ still-warm corpse is okay by me. It’s probably the production, to be honest; no guitar has sounded like that — both ringing and crunchy at the same time, without being the least bit glossy or “heavy” — on record since about 1976. And nobody else has emulated Paul McCartney’s singing style with such naked admiration (except Phil Keaggy, but that’s a different list), nobody has ever replicated George Harrison’s simple, elegant solos so effortlessly, and even the drummer sounds like Ringo, for crying out loud (though it’s the handclaps that pull of a reall Starkeyism). And the lyrics are nonsensical-but-meaningful in the best Lennon/McCartney tradition. But remember, a little of this goes a long way; I can’t think of any power-pop act post-R.E.M. that pushes these kinds of buttons. It’s in no way true that the first are always the best (three words: Sugar Hill Gang), but when it comes to gooey, slavish adoration, you need to at least place. Eventually, imitation just becomes the most sincere form of necrophilia.


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